A recent comment, and an apparently negative decision by the newly-elected Prime Minister of Jamaica, Mr Bruce Golding give pause for thought on the trajectory of the regional integration movement. This is particularly so given the elaborate publicity given by Heads of Government in recent times to the establishment of the Caribbean Single Market, and to the decision to finalise implementation of the Single Economy by 2015.
Mr Golding is quoted as saying, during the recently-held Caricom Heads of Government in Nassau, Bahamas, that to the extent that the establishment of the Single Economy necessitated the creation of a common economic space, and this in turn required some form of “political integration”, “once you get there, we have to get off because we are under a mandate that we are not going there…”. This followed an earlier statement by the Prime Minister, when asked about recent statements emanating from the Prime Ministers of Trinidad and Tobago and St Vincent and the Grenadines about possibilities for some form of political union involving their countries, that “there is no interest by us [Jamaica] in political union”.
The apparent negative decision referred to above was what seems to be a clear indication given by Mr Golding after his election, that the recommendations by a Caricom-established Working Group on the Governance of the Caricom integration process were not favoured by Jamaica. These recommendations, including the establishment of a Caricom Commission intended to facilitate not only decision-implementation, but the preparatory processes for Caricom’s involvement in international negotiations, seem to have been perceived by the Prime Minister as impinging on the sovereignty of Jamaica.
The proposals have had their origins not only in the 1992 West Indian Commission’s report “Time for Action”, but in the so-called “Rose Hall Declaration” of Heads of Government in 2003 which designated the Caricom integration process as being based on a “Community of Sovereign States”. And it was widely believed at the time that the then Government of Jamaica (led by Mr P J Patterson) was a prime mover behind this formulation, designed to put to rest any notion that the Caricom economic integration process was on its way to becoming a form of political union or political integration system.
The effect of Mr Golding’s statements and actions in this regard appear to re-open a hornets’ nest which many had thought closed. For it would surely be hard to find one Head of Government in Caricom who would believe that Jamaica could be dragged, openly or stealthily, into any political integration with the rest of the membership of the Caricom. After all, for one thing they have been well drilled for some forty years and more into Jamaica’s views on this matter; and for another, it is well known that today the membership of Caricom includes the Bahamas, which has long indicated that it would not, given the nature of its economy, wish to participate in the single market and economy, and the Republic of Haiti with a constitutional, political and legal system so different from all the other members.
It could be said, perhaps, that Golding’s responses were a sort of knee-jerk reaction to a sensitive issue in Jamaica and that slamming it as hard as possible, as early as possible, would give clarity to friends and foes in his country. But his linkage of the Single Market and Economy with possible political integration at this time seems curious, especially as the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the CSME passed through the Parliament of Jamaica when his Jamaica Labour Party was in the opposition, and there does not seem to have been any indication then of the party’s hostility to the CSME.
Observers of the integration movement have been long aware that the JLP, particularly under the long leadership of former Prime Minister Seaga, had doubts about the long-term relevance of the Caribbean Common Market to Jamaica; and it is worth noting that on the conclusion of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union, Mr Seaga expressed the view in one of the Jamaican newspapers that the EPA was a now much preferred alternative to the CSME as a future facilitator of Jamaica’s economic development. (In this article Seaga also virtually “dissed” the Caribbean Basin Initiative of which he was the original protagonist). Mr Golding has long been seen as an intellectual protégé of Mr Seaga, in spite of periodic political differences between them.
Both Mr Seaga and Mr Golding know that in the doldrums in which the Jamaican economy has found itself over the last many years, Jamaican entrepreneurs have had to accept the leadership of Trinidad and Tobago in a process of regional, financial and commercial integration which has involved the purchase of many Jamaican enterprises by Trinidadian entrepreneurs. There is undoubtedly a certain resentment of this in Jamaica, that country, particularly in the 1960s and early 1970s, being seen as leaders in the import-substitution manufacturing process, and in the establishment of indigenous private financial institutions. This kind of resentment boiled over a year or so ago, when it turned out that Trinidad would have to renege on its arrangement to supply Jamaica with LNG (liquefied natural gas), designed to further Jamaica’s industrial transformation of its bauxite reserves. And it was accompanied by complaints about the large trade gap, in Jamaica’s favour, between the two countries. So the ground for political dissonance is fertile.
But the question that must arise for other Caricom countries is to what extent the Region is ready to accept that, as the diplomats say, pacta sunt servanda: agreements are intended to be kept. There is already a widespread perception outside of the Region (though our political leaders may be hesitant to believe it) that Caricom states have become practiced in the taking and then subsequent postponement of decisions “sine die”(without a designated date, as we say on the adjournment of our parliaments). And we have to surmise that that is one of the reasons for the recent determination of the European Union to virtually force us to sign an EPA agreement on the dotted line before a new year dawned. But that is another story.
Those recent EPA negotiations have, once again, brought home to us that the world is not willing to wait while we engage in our dilatory habits. Mr Golding has observed that the days of preferences are over, and that, in effect, those who yearn for the good old days are living in a dream world. He has not said, or perhaps realized given his recent return to office, that the experience of some of his colleagues is that the days of a Caricom Secretariat machinery basically unchanged since the days of CARIFTA, are also over; and that many of those with whom we have negotiated towards an EPA, are convinced of this.
His hiding behind Jamaica’s sovereignty on the issue of the establishment of a modern Caricom implementation system – a Caricom Commission with effective powers – will surely impress none of our external interlocutors, especially when they know that Jamaica, like some other Caricom countries, has handed over decision-making and implementation on security and crime to persons from one EU government, the United Kingdom. For what is more representative of a country’s sovereignty than its indigenous ability to ensure the security of its citizens?
It is to be hoped that the very issue of working out a collective approach to security and crime, for which Trinidad is now asking, will induce our leaders to come back again to the issue of appropriate governance, and the relationship between national sovereignty and collective sovereignty in this age of open borders and open markets mandated by the processes of globalization and regionalization. The large countries, be they those of Europe, or a country of fierce nationalism like Mexico, have had to do this. And as Dr Eric Williams once said, “If the sheik could play, who is we?”
